


Delicate Things

by Shachaai



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Family, Multi, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-20
Updated: 2010-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:30:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/Shachaai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Outo is pretty, but dangerous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Delicate Things

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written the current Outo-contest over at CLAMP-pairings on deviantart a while back: Kurogane, Fai and their relationship in Outo.  
> I was in an _exceptionally_ strange mood when I wrote it, and I think it shows. ;;;

For all its prettiness, for all the pleasant people and relaxed atmosphere, Kurogane knows that Outo is dangerous. He knows the rest of the group knows it too – but Sakura, Syaoran and Mokona are focused on the hunt for the feather, on the oni, and think that's all the dangers; that's everything.  
Fai, however, as the other 'adult' of the group, understands the _real_ dangers of Outo – Kurogane knows that too, even though he knows that to get the other to admit that would be a close-to-impossible feat, the truth wrapped up tight and buried deep beneath smiles and lies and twirls and idiocy. Fai's smile is dreamy when he looks at Outo, when he looks at the flowers and the people and the pretty life they're building up _together_ and –

Well, that's dangerous for all of them.

 

#

 

"No."

Fai pouts at Kurogane, twirling with black cloth and white lace still pressed to his chest, still trying to win his way. "You don't think it's cute?"

 _"No."_

"But _Kuro-rin,"_ Fai pouts some more and the shop's assistants behind them stifle giggles behind their hands at the cute nickname, at the winsome blond so determinedly clutching at a maid's dress he plucked out from the racks whilst his partner stands, glares, tries not to blush at the hastily-smothered giggles and generally looks horrendously awkward all at the same time. "You have no _sense_ for these things. I mean, look at the clothes you picked out for yourself -"

"You are _not_ ," Kurogane tells Fai firmly, flatly, with the proverbial foot down, and more giggling from behind them that does _not_ help him lose the blush from his ears and cheeks in the slightest, "wearing a dress. Don't you have _any_ shame?"

"Well," says Fai, and actually seems to consider the question, "not if I'm letting you buy those weird baggy clothes that you picked out -"

"I don't need your permission to buy clothes!"

"Kuro-pon, we _both_ know that if we let you have your way you'd be stomping around in that black armour and swishy cape all the time and terrifying all the locals." Fai clucks his tongue and Kurogane glowers – dammit, at least his armour is _practical_ , unlike all the flouncy fripperies Fai seems hell-bent on dressing their group in. How is someone supposed to fight whilst tripping over a _skirt_? "So," Fai extends the maid's dress once more, seeing how Kurogane tries and fails to come up with an argument against the monstrosity and therefore can only offer accommodating silence, "what do you think?"

Kurogane folds his arms across his chest, and glares some more. "You're not wearing it."

Fai _smiles_. "It's for Sakura-chan."

So what had they been-?

" _Really_ , Kuro-tan," Fai twirls once more, laughing at the flummoxed expression on his companion's face, "did you think I was going to try and buy it for myself? It's a bit _short_ for me; everyone would be looking up my skirt all the time. Unless Kuro-rinta _wants_ to be looking up that way -"

Kurogane wants to _kill_ Fai. So he tries, lunging for the idiot's neck. Fai only laughs, ducks, and darts out of the way, placing the maid's dress in an amused assistant's arms, impervious to the death-threats issuing from Kurogane's lips. "We'll take it~!"

 

#

 

Some of the first things set-up in the newly-established café are the bottles of alcohol behind the counter, and a dartboard. It's mildly disturbing for Kurogane to see them, because then he knows that, at least on some basic level, he and the _idiot_ mage must have some of the same priorities at heart.

Or they both just like a good drink.

(Kurogane convinces himself it's the second option.)

 

#

 

Sakura runs out to buy fresh flowers from the market to decorate the café tables with, dashing back with a basket full of blooms, sweet as the smile on her face as she stands in the café doorway, beaming at all the patrons who are already flocking in. They haven't been in Outo long but already they're so busy, Syaoran and Kurogane staying back from training for the day to help Fai and Mokona.

Fai's just coming out from behind the counter as Sakura tries to go behind it – and they meet, bumping into one another and dropping most of Sakura's flowers to the floor. The girl herself doesn't fall, steadied by Fai's hands, but there are flowers all over the ground and both Sakura and Fai start to apologise at the same time.

Kurogane comes up behind them whilst they're picking up flowers from the floor, salvaging the least damaged, and sends Sakura away to tend to the customers with the boy. She has a better way with people than Kurogane has, so it makes sense for her to play the waitress rather than him. He's not so good at dealing with the delicate things – and it's one traded for another, customers for a morose Fai picking at ruined flowers ruined further by fingers not made for the bruised petals and slivers of stems.

Fai sighs melodramatically and dumps the spoilt flowers in a tub behind the counter, declaring them useless and covering up emotion with staged emotion as he takes what flowers they _did_ salvage through to the kitchen to arrange. Flowers should just be flowers, but Fai's an idiot and so Kurogane scowls after him, and Syaoran gives the whole mess a curious glance and carries on dealing with customers. Sakura and Mokona are already busy doing the same, and their smiles are a counterpoint to the _gloom_ emanating from the kitchen.

Idiot mage.

 

#

 

Fai waits for them to come back to the café each night.

When he is sane, and more importantly, _sober_ , he never says it as such, or even makes it all too explicit that that is what he's doing – but the facts are blatant all the same. Whatever time it is that Kurogane and Syaoran come back to the café each night, be it before midnight or even when the sky over Outo is beginning to go grey with the first touches of encroaching dawn, Fai is always present on the ground floor doing _something_ , whether it's entertaining the late-night oni-hunter customers they get, drawing the curtains, or sweeping the floor with the café lights turned down to a muted golden glow.

Sakura's with him, sometimes, and Mokona, half-asleep but ready when awake to bring a cup of hot tea to Syaoran and Kurogane with a smile. Other nights she's already asleep – either in her room after Fai has ushered her there or slumbering on the couch. She doesn't stir when Kurogane sweeps her up to carry her to her room and it's Fai who brings Syaoran tea then, pressing a cup into the drowsy boy's hands before gently sending Syaoran to his own bed. There's always another cup of tea waiting for Kurogane when he comes back to the main room after seeing Sakura to her rest, dark and strong as the night that sweeps into the café when Fai slowly switches off the last of the lights, starting to murmur a goodnight over one shoulder until Kurogane comes up beside him, tea downed, abruptly turning on one more light again.

"You'll trip on your way to bed," Kurogane tells him, watching the way the darkness recedes from Fai's eyes, black pupil giving way to blue in response to the light. "And I refuse to listen to your whining."

A pause – and Fai blinks, slowly, before a smile curls at the corners of his mouth and he leans in. "Kuro-wan is very kind," he breathes, and to Kurogane, even as he bears his lips back to snarl at the _ridiculous_ nickname, the hall's light seems to swallow all the air in the room, even after Fai reaches out, once more, to plunge them both back into the black, "but I don't need it. Big Kitty really does have eyes like a cat."

"Hn," Kurogane replies, and hears Fai's quiet chuckle at Kurogane's eloquence, the whisper of cloth as the mage brushes past on his way to his room. "Is that why you think the rest of us are so blind?"

He doesn't need the light to hear Fai falter on his next step.

 

#

 

There's something oddly peaceful about watching Fai sweeping fallen blossoms from the café path in the early morning light, gold sunlight catching on the white of his skin, his shirt. The waistcoat and red tie that complete the uniform are still, no doubt, draped over a chair inside. Kurogane stands, for a little while, out of sight of the other man and watches, Fai pausing in his motions now and then to look out over the still-quiet Outo, the same wind ruffling his hair that sends a shiverdance of ripples across the nearby ponds and streams.

Fai's smile twists strangely and the morning birds sing sweetly – and Kurogane turns away from the sight, because he has better things to do. The mage is an idiot, no matter what time of day it is.

 

#

 

"Big Dog," Fai asks one day, bent down behind the counter and ignoring Kurogane's snarl for his own look of confusion, "what happened to the flowers I put here?"

Kurogane glares, and wonders why it is the mage seems to think Kurogane would care about _flowers_ , for the gods' sake. "How the hell should I know?"

"…Hm," Fai says, still vaguely bewildered, and then wanders off, no doubt to bother one of the kids.

 

#

 

When they come back from CLOVER the children, the manjuu and the mage all get stinking drunk, and it takes Kurogane the better part of the night to usher the kids and Mokona to bed. The mages he deems is a lost cause, hearing _meows_ throughout the building, but everything suddenly goes silent after Kurogane puts Syaoran in his bed (for the _third time_ ) and, despite himself, Kurogane can't help but quicken his step as he goes down to check on the blond idiot, wondering if the mage's drunkenness and injured ankle have caused him to trip and whack his head. (Although such a blow might knock some sense into him – something of which Kurogane wholeheartedly approves – the kids would probably be traumatised, and Fai would whine _every day_ until the bruise on his head fades away. It's not worth the headache.)

Downstairs, Fai's not injured, by the looks of him, but just asleep. The café couch sees a lot of use as a temporary bed by Sakura but that night it's Fai who's collapsed out on the cushions, an inelegant sprawl, one arm over flung his eyes. He's on his back and it's the first time Kurogane's ever seen the other man sleeping like that, too used to the cold shoulder he gets from the mage even in sleep. He looks peaceful. Relaxed. Properly at ease. The expression suits him – and for a brief instant Kurogane wishes that the idiot would wear it more instead of the fake smiles he clings to instead.

Kurogane debates just draping a blanket over the idiot and letting the blond deal with the discomfort arising from his choice of bed in the morning beside the inevitable hangover – but the bandages wrapped around one of Fai's slim ankles breaks off that happy, _simple_ ideal swiftly. If the mage rolled over in his sleep and fell onto the floor he'd no doubt hurt his ankle _more_ – and really, none of the rest of their group deserve to listen to the complaining that would induce.

Kurogane switches off the café lights and in the darkness bends to scoop the sleeping idiot up into his arms, letting the mage's head rest against his shoulder. Up close Fai bleeds warmth, his skin heavy with sharp sweetness, alcohol and frosting, vanilla and sugar and spice. He murmurs nonsense into Kurogane's collarbone but keeps dreaming on, and when Kurogane lies the idiot in his bed he instinctively rolls up in the sheets, a cocoon against the world.

He leaves a warmth in Kurogane's arms, his chest, even when Kurogane has left the room and shut the door behind him, but Fai's too busy dreaming to notice, and Kurogane's too determined to _not care_.

 

#

 

Returning from market one time Kurogane catches Fai spouting some nonsense about the puppy-kitty family to a customer, so Kurogane smoothly clips the idiot on the back of the head with one hand as he goes past on his way to the kitchen, his other arm laden with shopping and his mentality too fed-up with the thread-thin joke, all without breaking a step.

 _"Ow!"_

Fai's cry brings a smirk to Kurogane's lips that no-one can fail to see, and Fai pouts as he turns back to the young lady he'd been talking to and catches the sight of the wondering expression on her face.

"I'm sorry," he starts apologetically, "Big Dog is -"

She waves off the apology, still looking at the door Kurogane had vanished through. "Does he _practice_ doing that?"  

 

#

 

There's a little glass jar sitting in Kurogane's bedroom when he goes inside one day after a day training with the boy, the top covered with a fine net and a red ribbon, keeping dried, scented petals in place inside. Pot pourri, by the looks of it, and Kurogane suddenly knows where the ruined flowers behind the counter went.

Sakura.

He doesn't smile at the girl the next time he sees her exactly, but he speaks more softly and actually tries some of the sweet things the mage has been teaching her to make, and his compliment makes her blush. Fai smiles when the princess patters back to some other task and opens his mouth to tease – but Kurogane stops him short, motioning to Fai's little matching jar of pot pourri, all wrapped up like Kurogane's with a fine net and a ribbon around it as blue as the sky.

"Not so useless," he says, and takes the dishes through to the kitchen to be washed.

 

#

 

Fai waits for them to come back to the café each night.

He's not always sane, and not always sober, but those are the late, _late_ nights where sometimes Syaoran is being half-carried home because he's so tired and there are shadows around Fai when he greets them, wobbly, at the café door and glad that he's so deeply entrenched in his own denial. Kurogane trades one charge for another as Syaoran stumbles to bed, Fai pressing in to replace the space where the boy had been – oh, not intentionally, never intentionally, though he flutters his lashes and smiles that crooked smile and _mews_ and _meows_ and crawls over Kurogane's lap until the ninja picks the idiot mage up by the scruff of his stupid collar and flings the lanky bastard into his room.

Sometimes they drink together first, passing a bottle back and forth and speaking words that mean everything and nothing all at once, sitting outside on the café steps and watching the night. Under the moon Fai is silver and white and barely there, and the blossoms Outo is named for look like snow. Kurogane wonders then, sometimes, when the alcohol is hot in his stomach and Fai is just a ghost at the corner of his eye, if that is how Fai will fade away, crumbling, glittering dust on the wind, but then Fai takes the bottle from his hands and his fingertips are warm. The bastard's still there, somehow, running and running but never getting anywhere at all.

It feels rather like their whole journey, actually. Kurogane misses his home.

" _Saa,_ " Fai says, when the alcohol is gone and they should be moving to go their separate beds but neither has quite summoned up the coordination or will to do so, leaning back on the café steps and stretching out one hand to the distant stars, his fist closing slowly on nothing. He doesn't look at his companion, but his lying look is the one he seemingly reserves for Kurogane alone. He's sweeter to the children and the manjuu, and Kurogane wants to strangle him. "Kuro-chan has such a serious face."

"It's Kurogane, idiot," Kurogane tells him, flatly, too fed-up for true rancour.

Fai's strange smile in reply follows Kurogane to bed that night.

 

#

 

There's something oddly peaceful about watching Fai in the early morning in Outo, especially as in every other world the idiot seems quite determined not to rise until _noon_ if he can get away with it. But no – Fai's found busy nearly every morning in Outo, the kitchen windows opened wide to the morning birdsong as he works on sweet cakes and pastries for the café, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and powder on his nose.

He hums to himself sometimes, tripping tunes with no words, and his deft fingers keep making pretty twists of pastry speckled with sparkling sugar, sliding cream-topped cakes into white boxes wrapped with heavy silk ribbons. Some of the café customers have standing orders they collect early every day, popping in with their smiles and their 'good morning's to quickly sip tea in bone-white cups before dashing back out of the door, boxes of treats in-hand.

"Kuro-sama," Fai says, startled when Kurogane suddenly makes a noise and steps into the kitchen, away from the place where he'd been silently watching. His blue eyes are wide and guileless – he'd truly been too caught up in his work to notice that the ninja had been there. "Kuro-sama…" surprise fades into a smile, softer than usual – and softer because it almost looks _real_. "You're up early. Did you want something?"

Kurogane ignores the question, and leans in to look at the strange mess on the table in front of Fai. He can smell almonds, and once more Fai seems scented with vanilla, sugar, spice. Not alcohol though, not yet. It's too early. "What are you making?"

"Tarts…" Fai's smile looks slightly confused, unused to Kurogane's attention in the kitchen. "Is there something you wanted?" he repeats instead, but Kurogane just shrugs, absently swiping a finger through the paste in a nearby bowl before his hand can be batted away.

"Too sweet," he states, as he tries it, and then wanders out of the kitchen once more.

Fai stares after him for a few minutes, and then goes back to making tarts.

 

#

 

Over tea one day Fai wonders aloud at how he always seems to mysteriously end up in bed every night, even on the nights when he was _sure_ he'd fallen asleep on the café couch.  
    
Sakura, Syaoran and Mokona all look at Kurogane. Meaningfully. Fai sips at his tea, and pretends as though that hadn't been what he'd been implying they all do.

Kurogane ignores them all, and helps himself to another one of the triangle sandwiches Fai has set out for them for their lunch. "It's amazing," he says, monotone, and eats his food with the highest degree of simply _not giving a damn_ he can muster before three sets of expectant eyes and the idiot laughing behind his flower-painted teacup.

"Amazing," Fai agrees, and sets down the china with a quiet _chink._

They all go back to eating.

 

#

 

Kurogane watches his surroundings at all times, consciously, unconsciously – it's something drilled deep into him that he cannot help, even if he'd wanted to stop. He watches everyone, notes dangers, notes _differences,_ and takes Fai aside in the kitchen one time when business is a little quieter in the café, when the day had been so busy and Fai had been dashing around everywhere, and all but forcing the mage down into a seat.

And starts, without preamble.

"Your ankle's still hurting you."

Fai tries to rise. "Kuro-wan, don't be silly -"

Kurogane pushes on his shoulder, and keeps the other down. "Your ankle's still hurting you," he repeats, and _glares_ to stop Fai from opening his mouth to lie and say he's 'fine.' "Why the hell are you still rushing around on it? Take a goddamn break already."

"Sakura-chan -"

"The princess has the kid to help her," Kurogane cuts the idiot short before Fai can go off on a long tangent about the children.

"But -"

 _"No."_ Kurogane doesn't want to hear any more of the mage's idiocy – not when he had seen the blond wincing with every other step and tacking on a painfully false smile whenever anyone had glanced his way. It had almost hurt to watch – and so Kurogane crouches down in front of Fai, unlacing the shoe binding up Fai's injured foot. There are new bandages still wrapped around it, for support, and Fai hisses when Kurogane presses his fingers to the tendons at the side. "Idiot, you're taking the rest of the day off. This'll swell up again, otherwise." Fai looks like he wants to protest still, put his shoe back on and go out into the café main, so Kurogane goes on. "I'll knock you out if you don't agree."

"…You wouldn't dare." Fai didn't even sound convinced of his own words, even as his gaze narrowed.

Kurogane smirks, and there's more than a hint of teeth. "Try me."

Fai takes the rest of the day off. In revenge, Kurogane ends up at his beck-and-call – who else could do it, after all, Fai so sweetly asks? Sakura-chan and Syaoran-kun are good workers, and if Kuro-wankoro went to help them all he'd probably do would be to scare the customers. Kurogane waits on him then, reluctantly, and manages to stop himself from smothering the idiot with a pillow.

Just.

 

#

 

For all its prettiness, for all the pleasant people and relaxed atmosphere, Kurogane knows that Outo is dangerous. He knows it and Fai knows it and the children don't seem to but knowing or otherwise they're swept up in the danger all the same, deep danger that has little to do with the feather or with oni or battle, and more to do with the cheer that spreads through their café, through the people inside of it, softer smiles, laughter, and this warm, flower-scented world where the delicate bonds between them dig into their skins like spiderthread made of razor wire. They forget, too quickly, too easily, that this is just a small stage of a long journey they're on, that what they're making between them is a lie, is a temporary thing – and yet –

And yet, they cannot help but go with the forgetting, carried on the breeze, because it's good to come back to the café, to the golden light in the darkness, hot tea and sweet cakes and a smile, the warmth of another body pressed close, leaning unconsciously closer.

It's dangerous. It feels like home.


End file.
